I am trying to convert a PDF into an Excel file. It is not copying over
properly. There is nothing to delimit the data, and text-to-columns based on
fixed width does not work.

What should I do?

YOu need a converter. If you have Adobe Profession writter it contains a
converter. There are also many commercial converter available (search for
PDF converter on web). Sometimes Pasting the PDF document into Notepad you
can extract some of the information you may need. Also copying portions of
the PDF document sometimes works. I usually try pasting the PDF into word
1srt, and then taking the word results and putting it into Excel..

"Jennifer" wrote:

I am trying to convert a PDF into an Excel file. It is not copying over
properly. There is nothing to delimit the data, and text-to-columns based on
fixed width does not work.

What should I do?

Hi Jennifer,

Another option - if the PDF has lots and lots of numbers in it - is to
scan the PDF at 300 dpi and use OCR (optical character recognition)
software to convert the numbers into a text file.

If you have a Cannon scanner - even their cheapest model comes with
pretty good OCR software.

The result might be as good as what you'd get using Adobe Distiller.

I am trying to convert a PDF into an Excel file. It is not copying
over properly. There is nothing to delimit the data, and
text-to-columns based on fixed width does not work.

Depending on the document, I can sometimes do this one column at a time.
That's certainly not ideal, but sometimes useful.

To select a column in Adobe Reader 6.0, click on "Select Text" or use
Tools Basic Select Text
and hold down the Alt key while swiping the mouse cursor diagonally over
the column.

Then copy from the Reader and paste into Excel.